Demon Heart (The Darkworld Series Book 3) (19 page)

Sleep paralysis. I saw the spell the sorcerer had her under.
“He encourages me to express my inner thoughts through painting. With a brush in hand, I can make wondrous pictures.”

I thought of the paintings of demons rising from the depths of hell, now displayed in Blackstone Art Gallery. It didn’t surprise me that they’d been painted under the influence of demons. She’d drawn sketches in the journal, too. Demon eyes.

“He showed me a dark place. It is his domain, he tells me. He has control over the darkness and can make the shadows dance.

He tells me his name is Lucifer, that it means light-bringer, and he will show me the light. He tells me he can guide me through the darkness…”

I stared at the word.
Lucifer.
This couldn’t be the same man who threatened the Venantium. It
couldn’t be. No way.

If this Lucifer was human, then he’d be long dead by now. No one could live forever, not even with magic. I knew that much.

But the fortune-teller had said…

There might be some clues here. Maybe this diary
had
resurfaced for a reason.

The journal shook in my hands as I turned the page, feeling as though I hovered on the brink of a revelation. I skimmed over all the irrelevant passages, focusing on any mention of this Lucifer figure. She never really
described
him. Was he definitely human? Demons couldn’t hide their appearance, as far as I knew―those violet eyes were a dead giveaway. But she definitely thought Lucifer was human.

Or was he a human-demon?

“He is teaching me to speak to the shadows. He says that I have a natural aptitude for it. No one has ever said that to me before. He is quite unlike any man I have ever met.”

Poor Edgar Wilbury
, I thought
.

“He tells me he is going away travelling. It will be fine. If I am lonely, I can always speak to the shadows. They understand me, they comfort me. I have started to paint again. It is the only way to express my dreams; mere words cannot do them justice.”

In the next entry, the handwriting was shaky, as though written in a hurry.

Something terrible has happened. Mother saw me speaking to the shadows this morning and was very shocked. She cried out that I was partaking in dangerous sorcery, and locked me in my room. For some reason, I can no longer speak to the shadows. They do not listen to me, or they simply are not there. I try my best, but I no longer feel the cold. It is as though a light has been extinguished inside me. I am dreadfully unhappy.

Mother wants to hasten my engagement. She says this place is no good for me. She got upset when I revealed my knowledge of the other place. She questioned me today about who taught me to speak to the shadows. I told her I taught myself. I must protect his secrets. She does not believe me. I think she is hiding something from me. Perhaps my entire family is hiding something from me. She said something strange. She said the shadows are both my family’s gift and our curse. I do not know what it means. But I am afraid.

I shivered, a horrible, creeping feeling snaking up my spine as I turned the page.

“I tried to speak to the shadows again today, willed it so hard that I felt something shatter inside me, like I’d broken down a
barrier in my mind. The shadows rushed into me, and I felt alive again.”

“I do not know what to do. I fear I have done something terrible. He came back today, and he seemed dreadfully unhappy. He told me that he had to take me with him. I was afraid, but I agreed. I trust him. He walked me to Blackstone and led me past the cemetery where my ancestors are buried, down the path I have walked many times. We walked through the forest. Spring is on the way; the trees are robed in white blossom, and buds are creeping through the soil. But I have only just noticed that coldness follows him wherever he goes, the chill of the grave, like he has risen from the very catacombs themselves. He took me underground, through a cave hidden deep in the forest. The tunnels were darker than the darkest night, and I could hear my own breath coming out in terrified gasps. He taught me to conjure a light as he did, but grew impatient when I was too nervous to maintain it. I feel as though I have failed him in some way.

He said something strange. He said that he had expected it to be more thoroughly guarded. I do not know what this means.

I could not believe what I was seeing. There is a whole other world beneath Blackstone, hidden underneath thousands of feet of soil, tunnels carved out of the very rock itself. It felt as though we travelled to the core of the Earth, like in Mr. Verne’s novel.

He led me in silence, only stopping after we had been walking for quite some times. We had reached an enormous chamber, and an astonishing sight met my eyes.

The chamber was lit by candles which burned with bluish light at five corners of a five-pointed star. In the centre was a circle drawn in chalk surrounding a mass of shadows, and he seized me roughly and threw me to the ground. I was unprepared and fell hard onto the soil. Then he told me to speak to them. I did not dare disobey. I spoke and the shadows answered, and eyes appeared within the circle. Then the shadows moved out of the circle, and I was sure I heard a cold voice say, “Thank you,” before they disappeared.

He took me home without offering me an explanation. But I feel dread creeping over me whenever I think of those mobile shadows.”

“You idiot,” I whispered.

“Something is wrong with Mother. She is behaving strangely. She has shut me away again. I could not meet him as planned today.

He is angry. He came to the house and demanded entry. Mother refused. He hit her. I was very shocked. Mother cried and told me I was speaking to the devil.

Maybe I am. But I do not know what to do.”

The next entry was shakily written and horribly blotted, as though the ink ran whilst she was writing.

“I do not know what to think. I do not even know how to write this. How can Mother be dead? She was healthy as ever in her life this morning, and yet now she lies as cold and stiff as my ancestors beneath the ground.

The last time I saw her alive was when she came to lock me in my room. I saw no one all day. It was the maid who found her this evening, lying in the hallway, dead. There was not a mark on her. Uncle is here. He tells me it was sorcery.”

A gap of several days occurred here.

“Uncle is dead, too, after being stricken by a sudden illness. My brother confides in me that he thinks there is a curse on our family. He wants to move far away. But Father disagrees. He says he will do everything in his power to stop what is happening.”

“It is too late. They are all dead now. Mother, father, even my brothers. I have nothing left. I sit in my room and cry, for what else can I do? I know that I am next. I know that the shadow has saved me for last, as punishment. All I can do is wait for it to arrive. But I know now. I should have listened beforehand, but the clues were right before my eyes. I know how to defeat the darkness. If I conjure fire, it will no longer be able to harm anyone. It is too late for my family. But not for everyone else. This may be the last time I write in this journal. I intend to burn
it in the fire, so no one knows what I did, so no one knows the depth of my guilt. Perhaps it is the last act of a coward, but it is all I have left. It will be some small consolation to my cousin Linwood.

Farewell.”

That can’t be it.
I turned the page over and found only blank space. It couldn’t end there, surely? Where were the demons? And the fire? The Demon Wars had begun that night, but there was no mention of how she’d escaped the fire, presumably with the demon still inside her mind…

I turned the pages and found my answer. On the last page, there was a scribbled note. The handwriting looked different, but still recognisable as Melivia’s.

“I had no idea this journal survived the fire. If I hadn’t found the crystal, perhaps I would never have thought to search this house again. There are people who deserve to know the truth of my guilt, undiminished after all these years. Maybe this is my penance. These are but the naïve words of a child, confined within these pages. A hundred and fifty years in the past.

I do not think it should be made public. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned, but I do not think this tale contains any clues as to how to defeat the monster. If I made any observations in my youth, they are lost to the depths of memory. It is painful for me to recall the days that led to my departure. I will never understand why he saved me, spared me, although I begin to. Perhaps he always intended the Demon Wars to be my burden, for me to bear on the part of my family, the last to resist the darkness. Today, no such family exists. The Venantium
―
yes, I have finally learned the name of the group my family was entwined in
―
are not as they were, and I am not welcome amongst them. I intend to travel and learn of the darkness of the world, in the search of eventual salvation, for what more can I do?

Now he is gone, but I know in my heart he will return. He is beyond life, beyond even death, and I could have been the same. But as I stared into the darkness of forever, I knew that I could not
justify pursuing infinity, even in a good cause. I must make up for what I have done, and if embracing mortality is the consequence, then so be it. I will conceal this diary in a place where the right person may find it someday.

I hope you will forgive me.

Melivia Blackstone”

I stared at the last page, as though it might rearrange itself before my eyes into something that made sense. Melivia Blackstone hadn’t died in the fire. Somehow, this Lucifer had taken her with him into the Darkworld, a place where it was possible to survive without a body.

And she’d come back.

Impossible.
All the books I’d read had said separation was permanent. The body of Melivia Blackstone had long since rotted away beneath the ground. But…

Like Lucifer, she had been able to return to this world. Even though she was human.

It made no sense. Why her? I guessed Lucifer had targeted her because she was a Blackstone and naïve and vulnerable, but unless she’d been a
really
skilled magic-user―hard to tell from the journal entries―then I didn’t see what Lucifer got from keeping her alive. A willing puppet? Or
had
he been depraved enough to want her to be the only surviving Blackstone, cursed to forever bear the burden of guilt?

So―assuming it was the same Lucifer―he and Melivia Blackstone had returned to this world twenty years ago. Presumably she’d had a change of heart, decided she didn’t want immortality. Whatever had happened behind the scenes, Lucifer had been defeated, and sent back to the Darkworld with his demons.

Did that make him truly immortal? Had he spent so long in the Darkworld that he had no need for a physical body anymore?

And what did that make Melivia?

It hit me like a punch to the chest.
No. No, it couldn’t be.

Twenty years ago. He’d come back twenty years ago. And so had someone else.

Was the fortune-teller Melivia Blackstone?

o way,
I thought. No doubt that the fortune-teller had issues, dark secrets. But was she the woman who had―accidentally, admittedly, but still―started the Demon Wars?